Tackling the Metagame: Control Forestcraft (With Video)

So I have been doing a lot of playing during this expansion (actually much more than I have in recent memory lol) and i’d like to think I have a decent grip on how this format actually works! It took a little bit though because so many things are different now than they have been. There are sooo many different choices and decisions to make now where it took a little bit of getting used to. With these radical new changes to the game, there is so much more to learn and explore and cards that we never really looked at before start becoming more of an option than they ever used to be!

Although I am not a huge forest fan, forest is what I believe to be the “Anti-Meta” Class right now. It has very good match-ups against some of the best decks in the rotation format.

Deck Overview

This deck is grindy. And when I say grindy? I really mean grindy! You will literally just peck away at your opponent all game while controlling their board until you can set up a Jungle Warden or a King Elephant.

Elephant lost a bit of its power when the new set came out because White Wolf of Eldwood was rotated out. However, it is still quite a good finisher as a 1 of. I wouldn’t consider running more than one of it to be honest. You really don’t want to be stuck with brick hands.

Fashonista Nelcha can either help push additional damage with your fairies or it can help make something easier to deal with in combination with your Fairies / Wood of brambles. I cannot count how many times it has helped me from losing a game that I probably had no business winning haha.

Magical Fairy Lilac is one of my favorite forest cards purely because it on it’s own is incredibly controlling. your opponent literally never wants to trade into the card. I mean, when your card just DIES on clash, doesn’t really seem worth it.

Yggdrasil is a very welcome addition to forest and I think is a much better card than Elf Queen. She gives you away to heal yourself, draw cards or even a makeshift win condition should you need it with your fairies or what have you.

Mulligans

So mulligans with this deck are pretty weird because they are pretty match up dependent. However, this is a basic guideline you can follow to help you.

Always Keep

Paula, Icy Warmth

Wood of Brambles

Fairy Whisperer

Situational Keeps

Starry Elf (If you do not have wood of brambles)

Insect Lord( If you have Fairy Whisperer)

Magical Fairy Lilac (if you’re going first, if you are going second, get rid of it)

Sylvan Justice (If you are going second)

Match-ups

All of the following information is based in my personal experience. If you have a varying experience, feel free to share it!

Favorable Match-ups

Aggro Sword

Midrange Sword

Puppet Portalcraft

Midrange Portalcraft

Summit Havencraft

Even Match-ups

Reanimator Shadowcraft

1000000 Zeus can be rather difficult to break through.

This deck has limited healing capability. Without Ceres, there isn’t much they can do to stop you from continuously punching them in the face with fairies.

Their goal is to get to turn 7 at the earliest to begin reviving their Zeus’s. You want to deal as much damage to them as possible before then.

Fashonista Nelcha is a great card to help deal with your opponent’s repeated Zeus plays. When you do play it in this match up, you are almost always going to get black dress.

Ramp Dragoncraft

Magical Fairy Lilac is incredible against dragon. None of dragons early game removal can kill her.

Wood of brambles in this match is more about generating tons of fairy advantage vs actually spending the time to trade a ton with their followers. Although of course, you want to make sure you are killing their important cards such as Sibyl of the Waterwyrm or any other big follower if you can.

Vengeance Bloodcraft

Vengeance blood comes out the gate swinging! It is important for you to start establishing a board as quickly as possible. Wood of brambles is essential to making this happen.

Spiderweb imp is almost the bane of your existence. It could be wise to keep Sylvan Justice in your hand even if you are going first just to help you punch through the imp.

Magical Fairy Lilac has proven to be MVP for me in this match, getting it down means that your opponent really won’t want to trade into it with their bigger followers allowing you to establish your control. It being a 1/4 is quite bothersome for bloods removal for the most part.

Unfavorable Match-ups

Ginger Runecraft

They play the late game much better than you do. Once they get to their turn 9 and slam Ginger, there isn’t much you can do about it.

The best way I have found to work win this match is to be as aggressive as possible and almost completely forgo being the control player as they simply do it better. Out value them using your wood of brambles as much as you can.

Dirt Runecraft

This is probably your worst match up by far. They have all of the cards they need to keep you at bay while they melt your face.

Best way to play this match is to play card for card with them. Don’t over-commit too much to the board as that is how they get you with cards such as Mutagenic Bolt and Master Mage Levi.

Don’t be afraid to play Aerin earlier than turn 8. You have to keep your life total up against this deck to give yourself the best chance to win. In spite of this, it can be quite difficult because they do so much damage.

Video

Final thoughts

I have been having a very interesting time playing this deck. It counters many of the meta giants so I definitely think that this deck is worth looking at. I want to give a shoutout to both eXodium and Akamarured for giving me some ideas on how to build this deck. Make sure to take a look a the above videos to get an idea of how the deck plays!

If you aren’t in our discord, you can find the link over to the right of this page and it will take you directly there! You can ask me questions about this or anything else related to Shadowverse! Until next time!